Mike

DesignerWithGun" onmouseover="window.status='Click to read the bio for DesignerWithGun'; return true" onmouseout="window.status=''; return true" onclick="ddub_popup('http://designerswithguns.com/wp-content/themes/theme1/ddub-template.php?ddub=14', 350, 400)">Paul

]]> http://designerswithguns.com/2010/01/17/best-project/feed/ 3 http://designerswithguns.com/2010/01/14/designer-spotlight-henry-moore/ http://designerswithguns.com/2010/01/14/designer-spotlight-henry-moore/#comments Thu, 14 Jan 2010 07:56:58 +0000 DesignerWithGun http://designerswithguns.com/?p=171 We are ecstatic to announce our first Design Spotlight participant, Henry Moore.  Henry is a designer out of South Florida.  We asked Henry a couple of questions about design, his technique and his girlfriend. Henry is currently working on a graphic novel called “Gate” which can be found here.

So here is a bit about Henry, and some of his work.

1. What made you get into design in the first place? As a kid, I always loved to draw. When I was five years old, someone gave me a book full of blank paper. At the time, the two biggest things in my world were dinosaurs and Superman. So the book is full of dinosaurs wearing capes with the emblem of the House of El. When I first went away to college, I had no concept of what I was going to do with the rest of my life. After two wasted semesters and a transfer to a different school, the speaker at orientation was calling out which majors were to follow which faculty member. I had talked with several people much wiser than myself that year who all told me the only way you can be happy is by doing something that makes you happy. I finally connected the dots and hit the ground running at that point, towards my BFA.

2. Why do you see design as being valuable?  For me, graphic design is entirely about visual communication. The level of sophistication of communication is what makes things interesting in the world around us. Just like written language, if someone can produce a visually cohesive item that can evoke anything at all in the viewer – I think that’s pretty cool. They say a picture is worth a thousand words. They’re right.

3. Explain your process. My process varies a lot depending on what I’m doing. If it’s actual graphic design proper, let’s say posters and ads and such, I do a rough sketch or ten in my sketchbook. At that point I pick out whichever roughs make the most sense visually and depending on the style of the item, I may or may not fully illustrate a larger copy of it in pencil. Either way it probably gets scanned next. From there I typically do most of my more detail-oriented work in photoshop; or illustrator if the job calls for it. For layouts I mostly use InDesign, though Quark or Illustrator may come into play as well. I worked for a long time without a tablet and I would never do that to myself again.

That basic process gets used for my graphic novel work as well, but not in say, my collage work. The collage is all x-acto action and gluesticks.

4. What’s your ideal working environment?  Ideally I would get to be the head of a creative team that was tasked solely with producing my graphic novel,Gate: http://enriquez.deviantart.com/gallery/#Gate . I did the first two chapters for my senior project for graduation, and have more planned on the way. I think I did some cool things with the text and it was a pretty big hit at the opening show. This is THE story I have worked with and grown with over the last seven years. I have played a lot of rpgs, and read a good number of comics and manga over the last two decades, and have pulled influences from a lot of them. The story itself is huge, and I would say that only 5-10% of it is planned in-depth at this point. I think I have something compelling and deeper than the junk that seems to be in vogue at the moment. Not taking any pot-shots here but let’s be honest, do we really need any more angsty vampire stories for tweens to drool over?

I also recently came up with another story idea that is the only one I’ve ever thought would be worth putting Gateto the side for a bit; it’s an “Us vs. Them, but after a while, Us and Them” alien invasion type story that actually came to me largely in a dream. Isn’t inspiration the coolest thing ever? Sometimes you have absolutely no control over it.

5. What “gift” do you plan to buy your girlfriend for her birthday? I would be thrilled if I could get her a good GPS for her car. We have gotten lost more than once thanks to crummy urban planning and the general disarray that is the road system in much of southeastern Florida. Some road signs actually point in the wrong direction for turns and whatnot. It’s pretty bad. Maybe some concert tickets too. She has managed to get me tickets to see Nine Inch Nails, The Offspring, and Incubus all within the past year so it would be nice if I could return the favor.